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IREN ÖZGÜR, Islamic Schools in Modern Turkey: Faith, Politics and Education (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Pp. 256. $ 104.99 cloth.
In recent months and years, Turkey's religious vocational (Imam Hatip) schools have featured prominently in the perennial debates surrounding the role of Islam in Turkish national life. Established in the early years of the Republic for the purpose of training religious functionaries (imams and hatips, or preachers), many of the schools were closed intermittently during the middle years of the twentieth century, but re-emerged under Turgut Özal's premiership in the 1980s. Since the AKP came to power in 2002, however, they have exploded in number with an estimated increase of over 200 percent in the intervening years. No longer do the schools serve their original function of training a (male-only) cadre for service in the religious vocations. Indeed, they now teach more female students than male and are becoming an increasingly normative part of the Turkish educational system. Those of a more secularist orientation have objected to this shift, reluctant to see the imam Hatip schools being repositioned as providers of mainstream religious education in the context of President Erdogan's "new Turkey."
Somewhat surprisingly, given the size and breadth of the sociological literature on modem Turkey, iren Özgür's book is the first comprehensive study of the imam Hatip school system in English. It is therefore an immensely timely and very welcome contribution. The book is meticulously researched and rich in empirical content. The author carried out field research between 2005 and 2009, mostly at schools in istanbul but also, to a lesser degree, in Ankara, Konya and Samsun where she was able to gain access through personal contacts (p. 21). She presents her reader with a thorough analysis of the internal mechanisms of the imam Hatip schools, including the processes by which students are socialized both religiously and politically. She also situates the schools within the wider context of the Turkish Islamist movement...